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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25138327">Drink, Before It Gets Cold</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/hmweasley/pseuds/hmweasley'>hmweasley</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Eat Drink and Make Merry Exchange 2020, Fluff, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Not Compliant with Avatar Comics, Post-Canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 11:15:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>965</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25138327</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/hmweasley/pseuds/hmweasley</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Iroh opens a new branch of the Jasmine Dragon in the Fire Nation capital, the Gaang comes back together to share some tea.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aang &amp; Katara &amp; Sokka &amp; Zuko, Aang &amp; Toph Beifong &amp; Iroh &amp; Katara &amp; Sokka &amp; Zuko (Avatar), Iroh &amp; The Gaang (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Eat Drink and Make Merry 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Drink, Before It Gets Cold</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redrikki/gifts">Redrikki</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hi, Redrikki! I hope you enjoy this. I really loved your Avatar prompts because I absolutely love the friendships among the Gaang and Zuko's relationship with Iroh. This was so much fun to write!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Zuko grinned as he looked around the tea shop. The original Jasmine Dragon, back in Ba Sing Se, had long been a source of pride for his uncle, but he was glad that Iroh had decided to expand his business to the Fire Nation. The person Zuko trusted most being in a different nation had been difficult in the early years of his reign.</p><p>The new shop was decorated in the same style as the original, including the Earth Nation greens and browns that had grown on Zuko over time. A sign out front declared the new shop to be a new branch of a Ba Sing Se favorite, a claim that might actually help business in a quickly changing Fire Nation.</p><p>Zuko couldn’t help but grin as he looked around the place. He sighed in contentment as he took a seat at the large table where his friends and his uncle were gathered.</p><p>Iroh poured out tea for all of them, giving them stern directions on how to best drink it as he went. Zuko gave him an amused smile as he took his own cup. He was well-acquainted with his uncle’s thoughts on tea, but it gave him joy to see Sokka and Aang listening with rapt attention to Iroh’s instructions.</p><p>“You know,” Sokka said to Zuko as he sat down his teacup, “it’s still weird seeing you with that huge grin on your face sometimes.”</p><p>Zuko’s gaze narrowed, prompting Sokka to raise his hands defensively.</p><p>“I’m just saying,” Sokka said. “You were Mr. Gumpy Grumps around us for close to a year, and you still don’t go around with sunshine shooting out your face like this often. It kind of weirds me out.”</p><p>He shivered exaggeratedly and took a sip of tea. Zuko glanced around the table, huffing when he noticed the rest of his friends, and even his uncle, suppressing giggles. He turned back to Sokka, who looked a little too proud of himself as he snagged a rice cake from a plate in the center of the table.</p><p>“You cried when you saw Katara yesterday,” Zuko shot back with the first thing he could think of that would have an effect.</p><p>Sokka let out an indignant huff, sputtering as he struggled with how to defend himself from a true accusation that most at the table had witnessed. Toph, in particular, let out a loud guffaw and snagged Sokka’s rice cake when he dropped it onto the table in his embarrassment. Sokka, too busy glaring at Zuko, didn’t notice.</p><p>It was Aang who took it upon himself to intervene before either of them took it further.</p><p>“Hey, come on, guys,” he said, leaning towards them over the table. Katara smiled at him proudly from his side, always eager to watch him pull out his Avatar skills. “There’s nothing wrong with being happy after all, right? I thought you getting excited to see Katara after a few months apart was cute, Sokka.”</p><p>Even Katara giggled as Sokka’s glare shifted to Aang, but Aang hardly noticed as he offered the plate of rice cakes to Sokka in the hopes of replacing the one Toph had stolen.</p><p>“You really are a great Avatar, Aang,” Katara assured her boyfriend, patting him on the back as he sat the plate down.</p><p>Sokka, still glaring, hadn’t taken a single rice cake, and Zuko wasn’t sure if Katara was being sarcastic or not. Aang smiled at her anyway, not perturbed by Sokka’s rejection as he snagged a rice cake for himself, his cheeks puffing out like a hamster-gerbil as he chewed.</p><p>Despite the banter and Zuko’s own irritation with Sokka not a minute earlier, he felt another sudden rush of happiness. If someone had told him several years before that he’d be where he was: in his uncle’s tea shop with a group of his closest friends, all of whom he’d once considered enemies, he’d have been unable to believe it. Yet there he was, in just that situation, and he’d never been happier in his life.</p><p>Being Fire Lord was nice. In some ways, it felt like what he was meant to do, and he even enjoyed the work at times. But being there in that tea shop, with a steaming cup of his uncle’s favorite jasmine tea in front of him, was when he was his happiest.</p><p>“Guys,” he said, allowing the others to grow quiet as they turned to him expectantly, “really, though, thank you for coming. It’s nice having you all here.”</p><p>Something about his tone of voice prevented even Sokka or Toph from making a comment about how sappy of a thing to say that was. Toph chuckled quietly to herself, but that was it. Sokka clapped him on the shoulder with a bit too much force but otherwise stayed quiet.</p><p>“You ever think about moving to the Fire Nation?” Zuko asked, unable to resist the temptation.</p><p>It was little more than a joke. He knew, after all, that none of them would do it. It wasn’t the most ideal of places for them to put down roots, if any of them ever decided to even live somewhere permanently. He was lucky to have gotten even his uncle to move close by for part of the year, and it was Iroh’s hometown as much as Zuko’s. But the dream of having each of his friends near was a nice one, and Zuko couldn’t help but entertain it for a moment.</p><p>Sokka leaned away from him, his eyes widening slightly as he fought over how to answer. He glanced at the others, who also shared uneasy looks. Zuko couldn’t help but smirk at their discomfort over how to answer.</p><p>It was Iroh who broke the silence.</p><p>“Drink your tea, Zuko. Before it gets cold.”</p>
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